World football body FIFA on Friday expressed satisfaction with the progress in South Africa on stadiums that will host 2010 World Cup matches.

Following an inspection tour of six of ten stadiums this week FIFA said in a statement: "We are very impressed with the efforts made in all venues visited and amazed by the level of detail of their preparations.

"I can assure you we are arguably ahead of previous FIFA World Cup organisers at this comparative stage," Ron DelMont, FIFA's head of the inspection tour delegation said.

The inspection team visited stadiums in Johannesburg, Rustenburg, Pretoria, Polokwane, Bloemfontein and Nelspruit.

Delays to the start of work on some of the venues and strikes over pay at some of the sites over the past year had led to some concern that the stadiums might not be ready by a FIFA cut-off date of October 2009.
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